I do consider myself a moderate independent but, to be specific, I'm a social liberal and fiscal conservative. My big disagreement with Democrats is that they generally tend to see government ideally as a large shared resource that everyone regularly uses to make lots of aspects of their lives better. I think money and resources are almost always more effectively utilized by the private sector and I want the government to be as small and limited as reasonably possible (far smaller than it is today). The less I have the government in my life the better. The problem is that Republicans talk a good game about small government and fiscal responsibility but rarely follow through.
Earmarks are only one piece of the puzzle, and their detrimental effect is not limited to the federal money that eventually gets spent on them. Cities and states pay lobbyists lots of money to go to Washington and bring home federal dollars, and Washington now has way too big a hand in managing the fiscal affairs of cities and states. That entire system is corrupt and wasteful, and the tens of billions that get spent on earmarks are a drop in the bucket compared to the ancillary spending and lobbyist influence that comes with earmarks. Bush is not even close to a fiscal conservative, and neither are many of the Republicans in Congress. He's increased spending across the board, and our federal government is a bloated wasteful mess. The problem isn't his tax cuts, it's his spending.
When it comes to fiscal responsibility John McCain has one of the best records in Congress and there's every reason to believe he'll make good on his promise to cut the fat out of the federal government. He probably won't be able to erase the deficit but I have no doubt he'll balance the budget while cutting taxes a bit. One of the reasons earmark spending declined last year is because of a measure championed by McCain that requires legislators to attach their names to their earmark requests.
Scare tactics are not exclusive to one party. Yes, Republicans have taken advantage of terrorism to scare up votes (leading many to foolishly assume there is no terrorist threat), but Democrats have their own methods of doing the same thing. How long have we heard that Republicans don't care about minorities, old people, the middle class, or children? Republicans will take away your Grandma's social security check and kick her into the street. Fear is the most effective way to get votes and so both parties have been relying on it for longer than any of us have been alive. This election is going to be decided on one issue: the economy. This is what I'm hearing from the two parties:
Republicans: Democrats will turn America into the Soviet Union and let terrorists take over the world.
Democrats: Republicans will leave you in squalor but we'll give you tons of free stuff. Then we'll all hug each other in the streets and have world peace.
It seems as though a lot of liberals believe Obama is going to pull us out of Iraq right away and shy away from military action in the future. They've deluded themselves into believing that the terrorist threat is a bullshit concoction of the Bush administration and that it goes away with the Republicans. Clearly, they haven't been paying attention. Obama isn't going to be the short-sighted pussy on national defense that they hope and pray he'll be; he's going to kick terrorist ass and he's not pulling our troops out of Iraq until the job is done. That's clear from his speeches (if you read between the lines). Right now a lot of liberals like to pretend 9/11 never happened and go into a frenzy whenever it's even mentioned (probably because that day informs so much of what we do militarily). They're going to be in for a rude awakening if Obama wins the election, because he's going to take ownership of the terrorism issue. My issues with Obama are on domestic policy; I have no doubt he'll be a hard-ass on foreign policy and keep our foot on Al Qaeda's throat. I look forward to seeing Code Pink lose their shit the first time Obama drops a bunker buster on a terrorist outpost, killing 24 terrorists and 2 civilians.
I don't know who's going to win this election (Obama holds the lead in projected electoral votes) but to underestimate the appeal of Sarah Palin for superficial reasons is not wise. An entire generation of dumbasses worship Bill Clinton as our greatest President on the basis of his sexual conquests. If they ever read books they'd realize that Clinton was kind of a slacker in the pussy department compared to many other Presidents. Thomas Jefferson was a sexual tyrannosaurus, as were FDR and JFK more recently. With the media crucifying Palin for not staying at home with the babies and other nonsense, she could emerge as a national hero for the independent women that will decide this election.